deavoured to shoot him with their arrows. But divine
Providence would not suffer their malice to take place; of all their
arrows, one only wounded him, and that but slightly; as it were rather to
give him the satisfaction of shedding some blood in testimony of the
faith, than to endanger his life.

Enraged and desperate for having missed their aim, they sought him
everywhere; and not finding him, they set fire on three or four houses,
where they thought he might possibly be lodged. The man of God was
constrained one day to hide in the covert of a forest, and passed the
following night upon a tree, to escape the fury of his enemies, who
searched the whole forest to have found him. There was a necessity
sometimes that the faithful should keep guard about him day and night,
and to that purpose they placed themselves in arms about the house where
he was retired.

In the meantime, the Badages, who had ravaged the coast of Fishery the
year before, animated of themselves against the Christians, and perhaps
pushed forward by the devils, who saw their empire decaying day by day,
excited also by the desire of glory, and above all things by the hope of
booty, entered into the kingdom of Travancore, on the side of one of
those mountains-which confine on the cape of Comorin. Their former
success had rendered them so haughty and so insolent, that they flattered
themselves with an imagination that every thing would bend before them.
But not having now to do, as they had before, with simple fishers, they
were come in good order, and well armed, under the conduct of the Naiche,
or lord of Modure, a valiant and experienced captain.

The inhabitants of the maritime villages took fright at the noise of an
hostile army; and retiring, for the most part with great haste and
confusion into the inland country, carried even to the court the news of
the invasion.

The king of Travancore, whom the Portuguese call the Great Monarch,
because indeed he is the most powerful of all the kings of Malabar,
collecting his army with all speed, put himself at the head of it, and
marched towards the enemy. The battle, in all appearance, was likely to
be bloody, and the victory seemed assured to those vagabond robbers, who
were more in number, and better disciplined.

Father Xavier, so soon as he understood that the Badages were drawing
near, falling prostrate on the ground, "O Lord," said he; "remember that
thou art the God of mercies, and protector of t